the men on death row were killing me and, to try to calm me down in my drunkenness and my indignation, he said in return that Aunt Monica was killing him.
I understand what she’s feeling,
he said,
but she keeps coming to see me to ask why he can’t get a retrial, and she pressures me to petition the minister of justice to commute his sentence. She’ll be the death of me.
I knew he was only saying that to calm me down.
He was a good man, too. A conscientious prosecutor, he was famous for never accepting favors of any kind. He had made a name for himself faster than any of his peers. Though it was just the effect the alcohol was having on me, the way he called them all animals weighed on my heart.
“Back when I was in college,” I said, “I visited you at work one day at the public prosecutor’s office. But I didn’t go into your office. As soon as I got to the door, I could hear someone inside screaming. Do you remember that? I found out later what the sound was. Someone had been hung upside down from the ceiling, spun around, andtortured into confessing. You were surprised to find me shaking outside your door. You took me to a teashop on the first floor and tried to tell me you weren’t one of
those
prosecutors. I asked you to put a stop to it, and you said it was ‘that damn section chief’ again. But Yusik, you didn’t run back upstairs to tell him to stop torturing that person. At the time, I wondered whether you, the section chief, and the prosecutors—the ones you said you weren’t like—were people or animals.”
He stared at me in shock.
“I’ve had that question a lot, whether men like that are human beings or animals. I think about it every time I see those men who go to room salons and do things in front of others that should only be done in private—not that it has anything to do with intimacy between human beings—like shamelessly shoving their hands up girls’ skirts and feeling them up just because they paid for it, and throwing their money around. I think about it every time I see them at school, too. Those professors who get up in the morning and drone on and on about the sanctity of education and the unequal division of wealth with the smell of a whore’s genitals still on their lips. They swarm to brothels and use those poor young girls who have to sell their bodies for cash. They strip their clothes off and stick them on top of tables and watch them slice bananas with their vaginas or open bottle caps—anything and everything that can be done with the human genitals. When I lived in Paris, I felt so ashamed every time a French person asked me if it was true that democracy activists in Korea were being taken away and tortured by the KCIA—or the Agency for National Security Planning, or whatever it was—having their arms dislocated or being stripped naked and beaten and, since that wasn’t enough, female students just a little older than me being tortured sexually. Backthen, as well, I wondered whether they were people or animals. Murderers? Animals, of course. Why even ask? Of course they’re animals. But now it’s your turn to answer. Of the types of people I just described, which one is the most likely to evolve into human beings?”
Like a typical drunk, I must not have been paying any attention to my brother’s reaction. He didn’t say a word to me. I kept going.
“I’ll give you a hint. One at least acknowledges that they did something wrong, while the other not only refuses to acknowledge it but thinks they are decent human beings. The first are punished for the rest of their lives for a small number of sins, while the second repeat those sins over and over, all the while believing that they are pretty good people. So, who do you suppose are the ones who think they’re innocent?”
“You haven’t changed a bit! How old are you?” my older brother said angrily.
“Fifteen.”
I laughed out loud. He looked at me with pity, just as the cops had at the station,
I understand what she’s feeling,
he said,
but she keeps coming to see me to ask why he can’t get a retrial, and she pressures me to petition the minister of justice to commute his sentence. She’ll be the death of me.
I knew he was only saying that to calm me down.
He was a good man, too. A conscientious prosecutor, he was famous for never accepting favors of any kind. He had made a name for himself faster than any of his peers. Though it was just the effect the alcohol was having on me, the way he called them all animals weighed on my heart.
“Back when I was in college,” I said, “I visited you at work one day at the public prosecutor’s office. But I didn’t go into your office. As soon as I got to the door, I could hear someone inside screaming. Do you remember that? I found out later what the sound was. Someone had been hung upside down from the ceiling, spun around, andtortured into confessing. You were surprised to find me shaking outside your door. You took me to a teashop on the first floor and tried to tell me you weren’t one of
those
prosecutors. I asked you to put a stop to it, and you said it was ‘that damn section chief’ again. But Yusik, you didn’t run back upstairs to tell him to stop torturing that person. At the time, I wondered whether you, the section chief, and the prosecutors—the ones you said you weren’t like—were people or animals.”
He stared at me in shock.
“I’ve had that question a lot, whether men like that are human beings or animals. I think about it every time I see those men who go to room salons and do things in front of others that should only be done in private—not that it has anything to do with intimacy between human beings—like shamelessly shoving their hands up girls’ skirts and feeling them up just because they paid for it, and throwing their money around. I think about it every time I see them at school, too. Those professors who get up in the morning and drone on and on about the sanctity of education and the unequal division of wealth with the smell of a whore’s genitals still on their lips. They swarm to brothels and use those poor young girls who have to sell their bodies for cash. They strip their clothes off and stick them on top of tables and watch them slice bananas with their vaginas or open bottle caps—anything and everything that can be done with the human genitals. When I lived in Paris, I felt so ashamed every time a French person asked me if it was true that democracy activists in Korea were being taken away and tortured by the KCIA—or the Agency for National Security Planning, or whatever it was—having their arms dislocated or being stripped naked and beaten and, since that wasn’t enough, female students just a little older than me being tortured sexually. Backthen, as well, I wondered whether they were people or animals. Murderers? Animals, of course. Why even ask? Of course they’re animals. But now it’s your turn to answer. Of the types of people I just described, which one is the most likely to evolve into human beings?”
Like a typical drunk, I must not have been paying any attention to my brother’s reaction. He didn’t say a word to me. I kept going.
“I’ll give you a hint. One at least acknowledges that they did something wrong, while the other not only refuses to acknowledge it but thinks they are decent human beings. The first are punished for the rest of their lives for a small number of sins, while the second repeat those sins over and over, all the while believing that they are pretty good people. So, who do you suppose are the ones who think they’re innocent?”
“You haven’t changed a bit! How old are you?” my older brother said angrily.
“Fifteen.”
I laughed out loud. He looked at me with pity, just as the cops had at the station,
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